


Not Your Brother

by EmmyKottakis



Series: An Angel Dressed in Black [1]
Category: Mor4 - Fandom, MorMor - Fandom, Moran - Fandom, Moriarty - Fandom, Sherlock (TV), severich - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 01:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18982900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyKottakis/pseuds/EmmyKottakis
Summary: Richard is Jim’s innocent twin brother, an actor, a pure gem simply related to a sadistic criminal...right? Jim is forced to question the very concept of who his own brother is when he witnesses something horribly out of character. While still trying to figure out exactly who his dear brother is, Jim can’t help but ask himself...is this war?“Jim knew something was wrong the second he entered the foyer. He couldn’t tell if it was the dried trail of red staining the pleasant beige carpeting, or the disarray of furniture beyond, or perhaps the menacing hiss of conversation coming from the living room, just out of Jim’s view, and too quiet for him to make out words. A stench had filled the flat, a smell of blood and gore that Jim knew too well to feel the slightest disgust.Something was terribly wrong.”





	Not Your Brother

Jim Moriarty reclined back in the driver’s seat of his 2018 model cadillac SUV, fingers drumming loosely along to the beat of some Queen song droning over the sound of vehicles passing by. The windows were open, fresh blasts of spring air threatening to tear the sunglasses straight off Jim’s face. He couldn’t care less, though he did entertain the thought of an unsuspecting motorcyclist behind him getting hit with a pair of shades and veering off the road. In the middle of “Killer Queen” (to which he was singing/screaming along to with reckless abandon), the AUX speakers were paused automatically as he received a call to his personal cell. He rolled his eyes as he read the caller I.D., which was of course “Booty/Bullet Call”. He pressed “accept”, closing the windows halfway so he could at least stand a chance at being heard.  
“What is it, Seb?”  
“Where are you? Thought you said tonight was your break night? I got whiskey and whatever girly wine you like.” Jim groaned with exasperation halfway through Sebastian’s sentence.  
“Fuck me.” He hissed, ignoring Sebastian’s enthusiastic reply of “I’d love to.”  
“I forgot about tonight. I’m just headed towards Richard’s. He says he’s deadly sick and Sev’s away, so I want to make sure he hasn’t bled out on his carpet.” Jim added more pressure to the gas, ignoring the beeping of indignant drivers as he sped ahead towards Richard’s flat, which was unfortunately across London from where he and Seb lived.  
“Oh? Is that brotherly affection I hear?” Sebastian mocked, his tone still at ease. Thankfully he didn’t seem angry that Jim would be late.  
“Is that a death wish I hear?” Jim replied sweetly, promptly disconnecting the line and resuming “Killer Queen”. In a few minutes, he was parking the car in a semi-illegal position on the street and walking briskly towards the apartment building. He decided not to knock, since that would of course prompt Richard to drag himself to the door no matter the state he was in, just for the sake of being polite. Instead, he invited himself inside using the master key he had gotten hardly a week after Richard looked into renting out the flat with Severin.  
Jim slowly swung the door open, closing it near silently behind him and beginning his climb up the wooden stairs. He was determined to make this visit quick. He’d make sure Richard didn’t need an ambulance, pretend to be interested in small talk for twenty five seconds, and then make his exit. He reached the door, and just as he twisted the key and turned the handle, he heard the first snippet of words from inside the flat. His lips dipped downwards in dismay, hoping he wasn’t about to be attacked by an eccentric actor friend. Jim muttered a curse under his breath and walked inside of the flat, quietly closing the door behind him as he glanced around.  
Jim knew something was wrong the second he entered the foyer. He couldn’t tell if it was the dried trail of red staining the pleasant beige carpeting, or the disarray of furniture beyond, or perhaps the menacing hiss of conversation coming from the living room, just out of Jim’s view, and too quiet for him to make out words. A stench had filled the flat, a smell of blood and gore that Jim knew too well to feel the slightest disgust.  
Something was terribly wrong. Jim darted across the hall, crouching behind a column and turning around to face the living room where the voices were coming from.  
Jim couldn’t believe what he saw.  
It was…  
It was Richard. Richard, his brother, the good one, leaning over a man tied to a chair with a knife purposefully held in his hand. Jim could only see his back, but he knew it was him. His brother. What was going on?? This had to be a movie. Or a show. Or rehearsal. Or something. But with each desperate attempt to find an explanation, Jim found himself realizing that whatever he was witnessing was not an act.  
“So, darling.” Richard purred. Jim suppressed a shudder. He recognized that voice all too well. That was the voice of Moriarty. “Have you had enough yet?” Jim watched as Richard paced around the man in a predatory circle, and before he could spot him, Jim quickly hid back behind the column. He felt a tremor in his hands. Was he shaking? What the fuck was going on?  
“Who are you?” Jim heard the tired croak of an obviously tortured man respond.  
“Who am I?” Richard’s footsteps echoed against the hardwood floor, stopping abruptly a moment later. Jim dared to turn, enough to see Richard glaring down at the man with his knife pressed to the man’s neck. “I’m your worst nightmare, baby.” Jim watched Richard bring the knife down swiftly, stabbing the man in the leg and holding it there, twisting the blade with a smile on his face that Jim knew he would never forget, the wails of the man ringing through the flat.  
“Scream all you want. No one will hear you. Except for me, when you tell me exactly what I want to know.”  
Fuck. Jim couldn’t think clearly, but his body moved despite his thoughts tumbling over each other to obtain an audience. As soon as he was sure Richard was looking away, Jim rolled from behind the column to the corner of the foyer, out of sight from the living room. He bit his lip to keep his panicked breaths from becoming noticeable. He couldn’t fuck up now. He needed to process what he had seen, what was happening with his brother. His Richie.  
He slipped out the door, closing the flat door just enough to make it appear closed without the affirming click to give him away. As soon as he was in the hallway, he found himself stumbling back, stuck between wanting to get away as soon as possible and needing just sit down and think-  
I need Seb. Jim thought automatically, reaching for his phone and walking down the stairs in uneven steps. His right hand clutched the handrail as he chose the first number that came up with his contacts and pressed the phone to his ear. Sebastian answered just as Jim exit the building, the London air suddenly seeming so much more appealing than it could possibly be.  
“What’s up?” Sebastian’s voice asked, managing to center Jim the smallest bit. He still couldn’t think. ‘I’m your worst nightmare.’ He couldn’t stop seeing Richard with the knife...the blood…  
“Boss? You okay?” Jim snapped back to the present, his hands doing that annoying shaking again.  
“I - Something happened, tiger. I need you. Pick me up three blocks away from Richard’s, near that bar you dragged me to once.”  
“Alright. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Sebastian’s tone had shifted into the same soldier-like one he attained during missions, each word crisp and certain. Jim hung up and let out a small, relieved breath. Sebastian was coming. He would be okay. Sebastian was coming. Jim started to walk, each step on the sidewalk sounding like the thud of knife into flesh.  
In minutes that passed by like seconds, Jim was collapsing into the front passenger seat of Seb’s car, surprising him by not demanding to drive. As soon as the door swung shut and they were alone, Jim put his face in his hands and let the rapid breaths threatening to burst through his lungs out, closing his eyes and trying to find a way out of what he had seen. They were filming, or...or the man was a mass murderer that was coming for Jim. Every time he tried to imagine a more innocent fantasy, the sadistic smile that Richard had possessed flashed through his mind. It took Jim a few moments to realize Sebastian was speaking.  
“....talk to me, what happened? Is Richard okay?”  
Jim looked up at Sebastian, who looked so clearly and openly concerned. Jim almost didn’t know how to say it. I walked in on my innocent goody two shoes brother torturing someone for information. The sentence sounded absurd even in thought form. Jim would’ve laughed, had it not been painfully true.  
“Richard…” Jim closed his eyes, remembering every single word that had been spoken inside the flat. “He was torturing someone in his flat. Torturing someone, Seb.” Jim opened his eyes to meet the shocked gaze of the blue eyed sniper. He went on, the words starting to come easier as he realized just what a fucked up situation he was in. “He’s been lying to us. I don’t know what’s going on, or what he was doing, or why, but…” Jim ran a hand through his uncharacteristically disheveled hair. “He’s not who I thought he was.” He spoke softer, the impact of his words digging into his mind. What. The. Fuck.  
“Oh fuck...Jim…” Sebastian glanced from Jim to the road that led to Richard’s flat, deciding he would have to make a few decisions to make sure they got out of there safely. “Once we get back to the flat, we’ll figure things out. Just breath, okay?” He started the car and began to drive off, slowly at first and then quickly tearing off towards their home. Every once and a while he glanced at Jim, who had taken to staring out the window shield. To anyone else he may have appeared nonchalant or blank, but Sebastian could see in his dark eyes emotion broiling. He just hoped they’d get home before the vision of calm shattered.  
Halfway through the ride, Jim broke the silence, his words lost of their usual structure and controlled drawl.  
“Severin lives with Richard.” He spoke softly, glancing at Sebastian, who tightened his grip around the wheel. He had been thinking about it, and hadn’t dared to do anything more than consider how much his brother could know.  
How many secrets had they been keeping?  
“He could still not be involved.” Sebastian replied, his tone sounding already lost of hope even as he tried to find a way, any way that had Severin appearing to be innocent, or misunderstood. Jim saw right through it. He had already been through the same process of thought with his own brother.  
“You know he is.”  
“I know.” Sebastian replied softly. “Do you have any cameras or anything in his flat?”  
“No, I don’t. Because..because, goddamnit, he was the good one. You don’t put security tapes in your innocent brother’s home.” Jim paused, adding frustratingly, “and every time I tried he conveniently found them. How is this happening?!”  
“I don’t know. Neither of us know the full story yet. We’ll figure this out.” Sebastian parked the car and turned to open the door, but paused when he saw Jim sitting still in his seat, his head dipped and his eyes focused on a blank spot of the floor.  
“Jim?” Sebastian placed his hand on Jim’s leg, meeting his stare a moment later. “We’ll figure this out.” He repeated, offering a faint smile before getting out of the car, Jim eventually following after him.  
They walked into the flat, and a new tension was strung between them, each of them thinking the same thing: Are there cameras here? Is there a trap? Does he know? Going against the criminal lords of Europe is all good and fine, but...Jim’s very own brother?  
“We have to find out who he’s working for. Or if he’s working for anyone. And who he was torturing. And why he was torturing them. And-” Jim leaned against a wall, his head thumping against the plaster. “He’s my brother. How the fuck could he keep secrets from me?”  
“I’ll check out any new...freelancers like that in London. We need to find out as much as we can before taking action.” Sebastian paused. What would taking action even look like? A family dinner? “You can work on who it was you saw being tortured. And eat something, please.” He ignored Jim’s scowl, quickly fading away to a small smile as they looked at each other in a moment of understanding before Sebastian departed to their room, where he kept his laptop. Soon the absent drumming of computer keys was heard, annoyingly tapping at a high speed Sebastian had adapted during his time at Eton. A soft huff of breath huffed past Jim’s lips as he walked to his separate office, leaving the door slightly open (not so he could hear if Sebastian screamed, Jim told himself sternly). Call it paranoid, but Jim couldn’t afford to shut himself off. With every second that passed, he remembered another piece of vital private information he had entrusted to Richard. And of course he had shared things with his twin brother. They had grown up together, shared the same heart breaks and disappointments. Jim had always thought to protect Richard, to keep him safe from the world…  
Jim found himself seated on his office chair, his palms pressed to his forehead and his elbows against his knees. He closed his eyes, tightly enough to send bursts of fireworks across his vision. As if things hadn’t been complicated enough. As if he hadn’t been far away from happiness as it was.  
Jim felt an unexpected touch on his shoulders, whether it was minutes or hours or seconds later, he was too spaced out to know, and he looked up to see Sebastian standing in front of him, his laptop folded in his hand.  
“Jim?” He asked, saying his name as a placeholder for everything else he wanted to ask - every ridiculous and protective question just to make sure he was alright.  
Jim shook his head, looking down at the floor for a moment, hoping to gain enough composure to try and fake an actual answer. Before he could, he heard the thump of Sebastian’s laptop being carelessly tossed aside on his desk before Sebastian knelt down in front of Jim, looking at him eye to eye, his hands on Jim’s shoulders, the smallest contact to try to make him feel grounded.  
“I’m here, okay? I know nothing about this makes any sense, but I’m here.” Sebastian said softly. Jim nodded, leaning forward so their foreheads touched, practically breathing in the same air for a small moment before Sebastian closed the distance between their lips, Jim’s arms finding their way around Sebastian’s neck as they shared a soft and lovely kiss that only lasted a few seconds but meant more than it should’ve to both of them. Sebastian pulled away enough to look Jim in the eyes, exchanging a softened, emotional glance that neither of them would speak of again. He stood up, retrieving his laptop and almost nervously glancing at Jim.  
“I...found something. You won’t like it.” Jim looked up, now alert and expectantly staring at Sebastian.  
“What is it?”  
“This is...this is bigger than we thought. I can’t believe we never tried to look into Richard before, but-”  
“Of course we didn’t look ‘into him’ before!! He’s my brother-”  
“I know, I didn’t mean it that way,” Sebastian quickly amended, barely hiding a wince at Jim’s automatically defensive yell, “But it’s just...the acting troupe he’s always telling us about... it’s fake. And I remember one of the actors names...well, I remembered a character he had played - remember the bloke...uh, Billy, that messed up the choreography in Chicago? His real name’s Colin Altman, and he’s...a hitman.” Jim grit his teeth. What the fuck did you do, Richie?  
“What else?” Jim half spoke, half growled. Sebastian coughed.  
“I can’t find any actual dirt on Richard...yet,” Sebastian quickly added after seeing Jim’s face almost visibly darken in anger, “but I’m going to keep looking. Whatever this is...he’s protected.” Sebastian continued tentatively. “I don’t think he’s just an everyday hired thug.”  
“Of course he’s not. He’s a Moriarty, isn’t he?”


End file.
